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The Old Testament: The Real World
The Old Testament portrays the world as it is, no holds barred. In its pages you will find passionate stories of love and hate, blood-chilling stories of rape and dismemberment, matter-of-fact account... -
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The World in which Jesus Lived
The world of Jesus was not the Old Testament Hebrew world. Like the United States now, Israel was multicultural, including a combination of Aramaic, Greek, and Roman influences. The people looked Jewi... -
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The Wesleyan Quadrilateral
One of the gifts John Wesley left the church is the Quadrilateral. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral refers to the four ways we come to know something as true: Scripture (what the Bible teaches), tradition (... -
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God's Word...
Addressing the clergy gathered at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 was a pivotal moment in the Protestant Reformation. Luther wrote, “God’s Word is more ancient than you and will also be newer and more... -
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The style [of the Bible] is of the battlefield rather than the cloister. -
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The Bible & The Land
There is a story, which is fairly well known, about when the missionaries came to Africa. They had the Bible and we, the natives, had the land. They said “Let us pray,” and we dutifully shut our eyes.... -
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A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text. -
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Dealing With Difficult Bible Passages
Have you ever found yourself reading the Bible and you came across a scene that is horrific, filled with awful violence or scheming swindlers or ethical blunders, and you find yourself unsure what to ... -
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Can you Grasp the Word of God?
There’s a story that used to make the rounds about the German theologian Paul Tillich. Tillich’s theology was considered dangerous by many Christians in the U.S. Supposedly one time after delivering a... -
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The Holy Spirit’s Literary Genre Of Choice
Story is the primary way in which the revelation of God is given to us. The Holy Spirit’s literary genre of choice is story. Story isn’t a simple or naive form of speech from which we graduate to the ... -
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The Challenge of the Old Testament
My brother, who attended a Bible College during a smart-alecky phase in his life, enjoyed shocking groups of believers by sharing his “life verse.” After listening to others quote pious phrases from P... -
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Preaching with Holy Curiosity—and Three Curiosity Killers
Diane Ackerman was talking about life, but I think it applies to preaching when she wrote, “I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived to the length of it. I want to have liv... -
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Written for Us, Not to Us
We like to think of the Bible possessively—my Bible, a rare heritage, a holy treasure, a spiritual heirloom. And well we should. The Bible is fresh and speaks to each of us as God’s revelation of hims... -
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The Bible ceased to be a foreign book in a foreign tongue, and became naturalized, and hence far more clear and dear to the common people. Hereafter the Reformation depended no longer on the works of ... -
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Bible Controversies come from our Hermeneutics
Many of the modern controversies surrounding the Bible—for example, human sexuality, creationism and the “openness” of God—revolve around questions concerning hermeneutics. The science of hermeneutics... -
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Set Aside Your Culture when Reading the Bible
Rather than translating the culture, then, we need to try to enter the culture. When people want to study the Bible seriously, one of the steps they take is to learn the language. As I teach language ... -
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He rightly reads scripture who turns words into deeds. -
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The Mystery of the Trinity
The Bible teaches us that the Holy Spirit is a living being. He is one of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. To explain and illustrate the Trinity is one of the most difficult assignments to a Chr... -
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We are Artful Dodgers
We artful dodgers act as if we do not understand the New Testament, because we realize full well that [if we let on that we did] we should have to change our way of life drastically. That is why we in... -
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Reading the Bible: Examining Each Leaf
Martin Luther said that every Christian ought to read the Bible from cover to cover every year. But, likening the Bible to a forest, he also said that reading the Bible doesn’t become really enjoyable... -
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If we want to understand any part of the Bible properly, we must consider where it fits in that great plan and how it contributes to it. -
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The Bible Needs to be Read in Context
With the exception of some of the Proverbs, the Bible does not contain isolated sayings. I should be wary about dipping into it at random and extracting individual verses without any regard for their ... -
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Thomas Jefferson’s Bible
The great American statesman and president Thomas Jefferson was a man of science who did not believe in miracles but really liked Jesus. Unfortunately, right next to Jesus’ ethical teachings are stori... -
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Same Bible, Very Different God
Last week, an atheist came up to me and asked how I could believe in a God who made parents eat their children. Naturally, I was a little confused. A lot of people have odd ideas about God, but ... -
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The Greatest Imaginable Number of Readings
Jesus Christ was prone to making comments which seem to support an almost infinite variety of exegesis. A remark like ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and ‘unto God the things that are ... -
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How Canonicity and Love Go Together
Love Loving the Word of God is a great pursuit, but it’s not always easy. Like most love relationships, there are inevitable highs and lows. And as teachers of the Bible, many of us walk a delicate... -
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Parachuting Into Unknown Territory
I am told that when SAS soldiers parachute into unknown territory they are trained to pause before moving. They must first get their bearings and only then set out for their destination. That is wise ... -
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Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson | A Review
Robinson's Winsome Faith I’ve been reading Marilynne Robinson's novels and essays for some time now. Of her fiction, I’ve read Gilead , reflections of a retired minister written for his ... -
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Understanding the Bible is a Struggle
Thomas Merton’s words about the Bible in general apply to the Old Testament in particular: There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible — until we manage to get so used to it that we ...
![The style [of the Bible]](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1630459314129-6ec8a087fe4a?ixid=M3w1NzU0OTZ8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwxfHxUaGUlMjBCaWJsZXxlbnwxfDJ8fHwxNzEwNTMzNTg4fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&auto=compress&fit=crop&w=200&h=200)
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